Chicago Botanic Garden hits 1-million visitor milestone

Garden members Louisa Dianova (left), of Skokie, and Kathleen Soriano, of Park Ridge, examine greenhouse plants on a cold January afternoon. (Denys Bucksten, Special to the Tribune)

Betsy and Bob Sharp were living in Glencoe when the first bulldozers began clearing and shaping the sprawling tract that would open in 1972 as the Chicago Botanic Garden at the southeast juncture of Lake Cook Road and the Eden Expressway.

"We used to hike in the area where Botanic Garden now sits," said Betsy Sharp, "and when the work began, my husband Bob and I and the kids walked out there where the piles of earth and bulldozers were. It was a long walk from the front gate out to where the prairie was. When we went there, all we saw was this bare plat of earth that looked like a huge vacant lot."

On Dec. 31 Chicago Botanic Garden reached a milestone for a single year's attendance: one million visitors. The final tally for 2013 was 1,003,000. In 2012, the garden had about 954,000 visitors, officials said, but last summer's warm, mild weather and some very warm days in December helped push attendance higher.

The 385-acre site features 26 display gardens. The 2013 budget was $28.8 million.

Sophia Siskel, president and CEO since 2006, said, "We've really seen a momentum building here the last five years. I didn't anticipate that we'd reach a million people, but it was certainly something we aspired to."

Siskel credits an initiative starting about 10 years earlier as "Barbara Carr, my predecessor, invested in a public relations and advertising campaign,from 2004 through 2006 with banners and placards on buses in Chicago and on billboards.

"That was the first step in building a region-wide and often national and international awareness," said Siskel. "The second thing was the garden's emphasis on the customer and providing an exceptional experience at a good value. You can come with as many people as you want in one car and pay ($25) for parking or come on foot or on bike and it's free."

In 2010 the garden's board of directors unveiled a 10-year plan to expand their reach by adding events, including free and more frequent summer concerts, gardening classes and wellness programs like tai chi and yoga. The purpose was to spread events throughout the year instead of shooting for high attendance at a few large-scale events.

Garden public relations director Gloria Ciaccio said a volunteer corps of 1,325 remains the backbone of the garden's sustained excellence. "We have volunteers who've been with us for 40, 37, 28 and 25 years," she said. "We could not operate the garden without them."

Betsy Sharp's interest in planting prairie grasses led her to become a master gardener through the garden, a position she's held for 30 years. Her work in the seed bank - cleaning, categorizing and storing plant seeds in deep freeze storage – is tedious but rewarding.

"We're cleaning these seeds for storage against global warming and for the U.S. Department of Agriculture," she said. "As a volunteer, working in the lab and the greenhouses, you learn a lot, sort of like learning about cooking by working in a restaurant kitchen."

Bob Sharp, 91, is a greeter at the garden. "He's out front, talking to people from all over the world and he invariably says how much it means to so many," said Betsy Sharp.

On a recent snowy, frigid weekday, friends and garden members Kathleen Soriano of Park Ridge and Louisa Dianova of Skokie examined greenhouse plants at the RegensteinCenter.

"It's so peaceful," said Soriano, "and it's always a different experience because of the landscapes and exhibits reflecting different seasons. Kathleen has been coming here for 20 years and she and I have come here for three years on a regular basis. I love to see how they wire and shape the bonsai trees. I have a real appreciation for bonsai trees and orchids."

"The biggest requirement is to be interested," he said. "Then you do the reading and work your way through the lectures, and then you can become a certified master gardener," said the retired metallurgic engineer and marketing specialist from Park Ridge. "Being a gardener here is less about having a green thumb and more about experiencing dirty knees."

Pearson and others take questions at the garden's visitors' center window on plants or trees people are considering for their own gardens.

"People are interested in particular plants or trees or flowers, and want to know what they look like, and how they can be used in home landscaping or a home garden. Botanic Garden has a large collection and we can help locate them," he said.

Pearson said one of his most rewarding experiences "was last year when a visitor came looking to select a tree for her husband's gravesite. She had a couple of ideas, and looked in our reference books at mature specimens. She narrowed it down to two or three varieties in this northern Illinois environment and finally chose a maple."

Some Botanic Garden staff, volunteers and visitors invariably describe a day at the plant wonderland as exhilarating, somewhat akin to a soul-renewing, spiritual experience.

"Whether you want to come here when you are sad, when you are celebrating, whether you are sick or healthy, at every point in your life, there is something here for you," said Siskel. "The Chicago Botanic Garden has become our region's community center, fitness center, country club, an agnostic place of worship, a place of education and science, and a place where it's safe."